Susan Preston has been an angel investor since 1999. In the time since she has held senior positions at private and public companies; been a partner in three law firms; served on the founding boards for Angel Capital Association and Angel Resource Institute; written two books on angel investing; and taught and consulted around the world on angel investing and early-stage investment structures.
Today she is the managing member of the Seattle Angel Fund, co-manager of the Element 8 Fund, general partner for the California Clean Energy Fund and chair of the Angel Resource Institute.
Oh, and the Washington native is also GeekWire’s new Geek of the Week.
While most tend to wonder what makes a great angel investment, we asked Preston what makes a great angel investor these days.
“Being engaged in the angel investment process and contributing one’s knowledge and time to making intelligent, thoughtful investments always makes a great investor,” Preston said. “But, I think, the post-investment engagement and support of one’s portfolio companies is an absolute imperative. Even if this is just introducing the company to a customer is a value-add. Also, we have a number of passive investors in the Seattle Angel Fund and I appreciate their willingness to trust our process to select great investments on their behalf. Selecting the asset class of angel investing as part of your overall personal portfolio, I believe, is very smart.”
Having invested in clean technology for nearly 10 years, Preston has come to learn what makes that a wise move beyond “it’s the right thing to do.”
“The fact is that we do need to aggressively address climate change and investing in new, promising clean tech companies is a way to help,” Preston said. “It takes more than a good cause for companies to get traction. The product needs to make economic sense — have a positive impact on the bottom line. We are there with solar and wind and we now need ways to enable project construction. My favorite is energy efficiency, which provides a company an instant positive impact and a negawatt is just as good as a clean watt in my view.”
“The requirement to provide a positive economic impact for companies has driven innovation,” she added. “We are still in the trough of disillusionment for clean tech because we did go through a boom and bust, but I am optimistic about the future.”
Preston said clean tech could benefit from further development and innovation in new and safer battery technology for more efficient storage of the energy that is created. She also said financing structures for clean energy projects and energy efficient technology is important and there…